If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the Forum Rules by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Threaded View

HOWTO: Dual boot XP & BT (With LILO)

Hey guys,
I finally got my harddrive setup working and I wanted to share how to do it. Because a lot of other howto's on this forum are straight jacked from other distributions (and they didn't work for me), I thought I would write this up real quick. This is V1.0 so hopefully it wont have any bugs, if it does, just reply or PM me.

Step 2: Use a disk partitioning tool like Partition Magic (usually free with new hard drives) to cut up a partition for BT. Make it EXT2 so that you can actually boot to it and write to it from Linux.

Step 3: Load the BT CD and install to hard drive. MAKE SURE TO INSTALL TO YOUR PARTITION FOR BT! DONT OVERWRITE YOUR XP PARTITION! As for where to write LILO, just let it write to /dev/hda1 or your master drive.
Step 4: Once you have written BT to your hard drive, you pretty much cannot access your XP partition anymore. But fret not! We will soon have it back. Just go back into your newly installed BT, get to a command prompt and type this in:

Code:

$: liloconfig

This is going to lead you through installing your windows info onto your boot loader. Just choose the simple session, then click enter, then install to your master boot record. It will give you an error, but thats cool. You will now be kicked backed to console

Step 5:

Now type this into console:

Code:

$: nano /etc/lilo.conf

This will open up your newly created information that you will boot from. What you did earlier created this file. However, if you leave some permissions to how they are, your shizzle isn't going to boot and you will get tons or 'cannot write to....' errors and stuff is just going to be a nightmare. Therefore, scroll way down to where is says #Linux bootable partition config begins. Change it to this:

That last part is very important. Its on the "TRIBOOT" howto, but it doesn't really make a big deal out of it. If you dont make it read-write, your system wont boot correctly. Damn, thats annoying because you have to reinstall.

Step 6:

The last thing you have to do is initiate LILO, or whatever. This pretty much sets everything in place for when you next boot. Just type this into your console:

Code:

$lilo

You should get something telling you that you have two choices, Windows* and Back|Track. The star, I believe means its new, or something. You got me *shrug*. However, this should allow you to dual boot to either partition.

Conclusion: Now this pretty much lays it out for people who JUST WANT BT on their box with XP. The triboot Howto is good but this just lays it out for all those folks (like me) that just need 2 confusing OSs on their computer.